


No Man An Island

by Wecanhaveallthree



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 15:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21255269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wecanhaveallthree/pseuds/Wecanhaveallthree
Summary: The T'au Empire pursues a successful policy of integration in their newfound holdings at Nem'yar, yet they have no defence against the predations of mankind's oldest foe. With the governance of humanity comes the threat of taint and corruption, and as the forces of Chaos assault the Atoll from within and without, an uneasy alliance is formed...





	No Man An Island

**I - INTRODUCTION**

The crowd flowed like water down a filthy gutter, each human in their grey raincape and soggy scarves one part of the mottled mass. Sagging arches offered little protection from the eternal rain, icy water dripping from their faded banners and bunting, sluicing from now-faceless statues of Imperial heroes of old. Not so long ago the marble emplacements had been wrought in such a cunning way that the downpour had seemed to spring from the eyes of those forgotten angels and saints, as though their tears cleansed those who passed below of their sins.

Now, robbed of their meaning, they were just things. Cold as the rain was cold. Dead as the hearts of the people below were dead. Perhaps one day something would replace it; perhaps one day another meaning would rise. Perhaps not.

Along each cramped street were the age-bent, squat and unlovely edifices of the Imperium. They did not reach high enough to be inspiring; they were not stout enough to be ominous. They were simply oppressive, and -- now scrubbed clean of red, gold, and Imperial iconography -- mournfully blank. Like tombstones on their way to a lichyard, ready to be carved.

Fluted piping crept down buildings like bronze ivy, carrying sewage, gas, water, oils: the lifeblood of society pumped up from the great organs below. Those hidden hearts belched great gouts of smoke and steam into the atmosphere from grilled outlets in every corner of the city. There was not a nook or alley that did not choke with light poisons, exhaled by the industry beneath.

No wonder the conquerors kept well away from the hives. No wonder their slitted faces wrinkled in poorly-disguised contempt.

They held the footway bridges between Lower Sartheno and their bubble-domed habitats in a series of heavily-fortified checkpoints. Traffic was thin. Imperial citizens had rarely gone beyond the city blocks they had been born in before the invasion, and little has changed since. The pale faces turned towards the sentries and their field-gates did not bear animosity. They were not sullen, or angered, or even curious.

Citizens of the Imperium were too busy, too beaten down by crushing work schedules and the base depression of their lives to muster any true interest in whose hand now held the whip.

Two indistinct figures broke from the throng and moved towards the checkpoint.

At once, idle hovering drones brought their marker lights and spot-shines to bear on the approaching humans, painting their rain-greased raincapes in a flurry of red and white. Like bullets in a blizzard, though no weapon had yet fired. Behind crash-barriers, warriors clad in ochre armour sighted plasma rifles, the cyclopean eye of each burning with an inner light.

The caution was warranted enough. Few humans had any business beyond the bridge, and those that did were brought across in the middle of the local night in stealth skimmers with black hoods over their heads.

They rarely came back.

‘_Gue’la!_’ cracked an augmented voice, ‘In place! Arms high!’

The two stopped at once, lifting their hands. Sleeker probes than those that hovered over the checkpoint flitted nearer, their sensors playing over the humans, the information filtering directly into the local Cadre net and then back to the greater data-banks of the invaders to be further diagnosed and collated.

The examination was as thorough as it was invasive. The shorter of the pair was female, middle-aged by _gue’la_ standards and afflicted by several long-term health issues: a shrunken liver, lungs patched clumsily by cheap bionics, reproductive organs missing entirely and whose lack was filled by scratchy traces of radiation. The taller was younger and in better health, but concealed his fear more poorly -- his heart raced, his skin perspired.

Both wore armour-weave beneath their raincapes, the interlocking plates proof against an unpowered weapon such as a knife or solid-shot projectile. The female had a weapon of her own in a shoulder-holster, a pistol of typical human overengineering, thick and crude.

The drone-scans paused at the jewel that hung about the woman’s neck, a delicate ruby set in the middle of a stylised _gue’la_ letter. A device of some kind, but impenetrable.

‘We’re expected,’ said the woman, her voice the damaged growl of a long-term lho-addict. ‘Smoke initiative.’

The marker lights swung away as though abashed. Plasma rifles dipped but were not slung.

‘Approach barrier!’ came the augmented reply.

As the two came closer, their features were brought into sharper relief. The man’s face was pockmarked, cratered by the removal of slave electoos, forming another mask of scar tissue around his eyes and cresting in a crude aquila across his forehead. Conversely, the woman’s features were so smooth and unblemished they may as well have been a play-mask, the skin stretched tight across her skull.

The Fire Caste gatekeepers stood back, their helmets scanning for other threats following in the gue’la’s wake, averred from the slight member of their species who hurried out from the lee of an idling hover-transport.

Beneath a hood of purple that warded off the worst of the environment, two eyes surveyed the approaching gue’la. Hands moved in the greeting-of-valued-contributors, something neither would recognise or return, but decorum was important - and it maintained the illusion of being out of step with current events. The Water Caste wielded expectation and appearance as surely as the warriors at the barrier did their pulse rifles.

‘My appreciation for your quick response,’ the envoy said, his voice carrying easily over the rasp of rain on ferrocrete. ‘This is a rare opportunity for direct co-operation.’

‘You couldn’t do it yourself, you mean,’ the woman replied, her face betraying none of the venom in her tone. The warriors around them stiffened, as much as they pretended at deafness. ‘Or you won’t bloody your hands. Or you couldn’t get your Aun to approve.’

A moment. ‘Yes,’ the envoy confessed. ‘It is as you say.’

‘Same as us, then.’

‘Your Inquisitor does not countenance this?’

‘No need to bother her with the details. As you say: a rare opportunity.’

The envoy nodded, a human gesture, palms out in the expression of shared risks. ‘Then we are, ah, what is your expression? ‘In it together?’’

‘What we are,’ the woman muttered, ‘is standing about in the rain like dumb grox.’

‘Then we shall depart at once, lady…?’

The woman’s lips finally quirked in a crass smile at the outdated platitude. It turned the pensive mask into something almost human. ‘No need to butter us up like deep-crab. The interrogator here is Quist. I’m Eris. Do you have a name in plain Gothic?’

The T’au bowed low. ‘Clearthought.’

At an unseen signal, the hover-transport’s boarding partition opened to spill out warmth and light over the checkpoint.

* * *

**II: TRANSPORTATION**

It was to be a journey of close to a local hour, though the hovercraft moved across the resurfaced streets of New Sartheno without the shaking and shuddering that a truck or Imperial transport would have forced the occupants to endure. Even the upholstery and seating were comfortable: human standard, and adjustable into the bargain. Eris appreciated that much business had been done in the comfortable confines of vehicles like this, the local governors and trade-barons awed by the technology and foresight of their new occupiers.

The battle for the Atoll had been won in sedans like this rather than on the grim frontier. Eris could see the benefits for the victors from the viewport of the transport as it moved easily through the greater traffic of the new developments.

Segregation of living and trade quarters had been done with the T’au caste system in mind. While their xeno allies walked about as equals, they had their own barracks and habitats outside the great domes. For the moment, at least, the human government were treated as favoured vassals. How things would change once the Atoll was secured…

`How goes the war?’ Eris asked, shifting away from the view to face their host. ‘Will you mobilise Sartheno as auxiliaries?’

Clearthought leaned back, steepling his fingers in the moment-of-consideration. ‘Does your Inquisitor not appraise you?’

‘I’d value your own thoughts, in a private forum. The Archenemy is investing in this theatre as hard as they did Ultramar. Harder, possibly, considering the deployment of certain elite forces.’ A wince. ‘I’ll not speak their name here.’

‘You gue’la are ever superstitious.’ Clearthought’s eyes flicked to Eris’ companion, the scarred man’s attention fixed on the sights speeding by outside the transport. ‘I admit it is difficult to understand.’

‘You’ll get a closer look soon enough. I warn you, T’au, you’re going to see and hear things that will upset you.’

‘I am prepared for your mind-science.’

A throaty chuckle. ‘No you’re not. Nobody is. Now: what news from the front?’

Again, Clearthought took a moment to consider his human companions, his fine mind partitioning information into a form they would have little trouble taking the meaning of. ‘Our defence is… difficult. Our attention is split. Shadowsun is an able commander, but there are limits to what burdens even a student of Puretide may take upon herself. She is talented, capable, and equal to the task before her.’ He shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, not all are so dedicated.’

‘Your initial expedition?’

‘The Fourth Expansion Sphere. Even the blessed Aun has difficulty commanding their full obedience. They are ignorant even of that dishonour and worse, of how little they are trusted.’ Genuine sadness had entered Clearthought’s voice as he voiced his deepest regret. ‘It is a wretched thing for the Greater Good to be so fractured, to be unable to reconcile. It strikes at the very heart of all that we believe.’

‘Yet you let them continue to serve.’

‘Our position in the Atoll is precarious. They are not beyond redemption. I will not countenance such absolute failure.’ Clearthought looked away for a moment, controlling his grief. ‘I will not.’

‘In the Imperium, we deal with disobedience in a more direct fashion.’

‘And see where that has led you.’

The transport passed an open street market, the great dome above keeping off the eternal rain of Sartheno. Flutes piped, streamers fluttered, as humans and xenos exchanged ideas, trade goods, songs, bargains. A lifetime of fear had been erased by the welcoming arms of the Greater Good, assisted by the integration and assimilation efforts of the Water Caste. Life for the upper crust of former Imperial society had expanded its horizons. They would not accept confinement again.

Eris nodded, distaste plain on her face. ‘I take your point. So no mobilisation. Particularly not if you can bring the Fourth back into the mainstream.’

‘A credible assessment. In your turn, then, how goes your own campaign?’ Clearthought brought his hands together, the meeting-of-rivers. ‘Until this moment, I had no names to put to the Imperium’s representatives in Nem’yar. Indeed, I have few reports that are not hearsay or speculation of your works. I know them solely by their… efficiency.’

Instead of taking the barbed query, Eris patted at her overcoat, frowning. ‘Throne above, where-’ she nudged her companion in the ribs. ‘Quist, got a smoke?’

The scarred interrogator smiled. It was an open, honest expression that contrasted harshly with the brands upon his face. ‘Sorry, Eri. I was about to ask you.’

‘Filthy habit,’ she replied. ‘Best to quit while you’re young.’

Smoothing out the lines of her attire, Eris sat back in her seat, making an appraisal of the T’au, considering how much to reveal much as Clearthought had.

‘Sartheno is lousy with cults,’ she began, stopped, then settled herself again. ‘Not the usual pox and plague cults you’d expect to see, considering who’s knocking on the door, though there’s enough of them. I’m talking counter-cults, and bastard ones at that, with a whole spectrum of fusion between the Imperial Creed and your Greater Good.’

‘You do not approve,’ the T’au replied. ‘As with your superstition, your fascination with this religion -- even the most rational of you -- drives those who study your race to distraction.’

‘The Emperor is real, xeno.’

‘Have you ever seen him?’

‘Well - no.’

The T’au spread his hands, palms up. ‘The cults, you were saying.’

‘Yes, apologies. Um,’ Eris bit her lip, in thought. ‘It’s a conjunction, that much is obvious. Lot of street-psy and back-alley sorcery being thrown about. But whether the power-brokers running the game are local, or come for the show, we haven’t been able to determine to a real degree of credibility yet.’ A grin. ‘Which is why we agreed to this meeting.’

‘You see how this opportunity benefits us both. That is good. Perhaps in future-’

Eris cut the envoy off with a sharp chop of her gloved hand. ‘No. Just because we’re working side-by-side doesn’t mean we’re on the _same_ side. We’re here to keep the Archenemy from opening a second front on Ultramar, not suppress Imperial citizens for you.’

The T’au was silent a moment, as though chewing over something unpleasant. ‘There will be a reckoning,’ Clearthought said after several dragging seconds. ‘Will there not? When you return to these lost worlds?’

‘Yes. The faithless will receive the Emperor’s justice.’

‘That is not justice.’

A sharp rap tore the two from their budding argument. Interrogator Quist had drawn their attention to the viewport, his smile and scars reflected in a ruddy, devilish rictus. ‘Out there,’ he asked, softly, ‘How many psykers do you think there are, without the Adepta to police them, without the Black Ships to take them?’

Clearthought interlaced his fingers, the-deferment-of-answers. ‘There has been no mind-plague on Sartheno, if that is what you imply.’

‘Let me rephrase,’ replied the Interrogator. ‘Have you ever seen a hab-block burn by a touched child’s pyrokinesis? Have you ever had to purge a hospital’s maternity wing, because some soft-headed surgeon hoped for the best?’

The smile grew fixed, terrible. ‘Four hundred and eighteen innocent souls, sent to the Emperor’s embrace, because the taint could have been in any of them. Think wisely before you argue necessity and justice with us, T’au. You hold Nem’yar for now, yes, but until you harden your hearts and open your eyes to the dangers of the Warp, you nurture death in your midst. You may drive off the Archenemy, but that reckoning cannot be postponed indefinitely.’

Quist’s hand went unconsciously to the aquila that marred his features. ‘Chaos is a poison. You cannot heal it. You can only burn it out, wherever it is found.’

The T’au had no reply.

The hover transport hummed across upper Sartheno, its occupants in full silence. It navigated down increasingly emptied streets, towards the far side of xeno occupation, where the most vital and secretive of T’au permanent occupation was based. Alien architecture quickly subsumed the blocky local edifices: domes and curved angles overtaking the rigid lines of Imperial structures.

Several times the craft slowed to a walking pace as codes and signals were exchanged and accepted. More than once heavy gun-drones buzzed angrily down, their mono-ocular eyes searching for anything out of place.

Eris was put in the mind of random shakedowns by Arbites shock-squads, though where she came from at least Imperial justice had to walk around like everyone else. There was something obscene about how the swarms of automatons descended without warning, their lethal weapons twitching for target data.

Such a lack of control seemed insane. What would happen if, one day, the drones decided that they no longer wished to serve their alien masters? If their technological alliance should prove insufficient?

There had been a time when humanity had trusted such abominable intelligences. Like all trust, it failed, and the resulting catastrophe had seen the species come to the very edge of extinction.

It was a lesson the T’au would have to learn for themselves.

The reason for the heightened security became clear as the hover transport turned a blind corner and came to a halt in front of an unassuming block-bunker with more remote mines and turrets than most well-defended fortresses. Once more the embarkation ramp slid out, the interior hatch hissing open.

‘A word of caution,’ Clearthought said as they unbuckled their restraints. ‘Do not stray from the path here. The Curia is operated by the Red Tower. They do not…’ he struggled for the right words.

‘They are different,’ he finished.

The Imperials shared a knowing look.

‘Our kind of people,’ replied Eris.

* * *

**III - INTERROGATION**

The Curia’s foyer was a hub almost esoteric in its design: a perfect sphere containing several identity scanners and embrasures. Discrete energy fields barred radial pathways deeper into the facility: none would open without direct authorisation. The rectangular passages seemed to repeat far out of sight, as though looking into a recursive reflection.

Above all, it was the enamel purity of the place that disquieted the Imperials most. Everything was so starkly white, so clean, so pale, like a corpse on an embalming table.

They stood awkwardly to the side as Clearthought engaged a stern-looking T’au in conversation, their bobbing and weaving body language impenetrable to outsiders. Around them, the work of the facility went on with few glances spared for the human interlopers.

The interrogator nudged his companion, and gestured down a corridor. ‘See that, on the wall?’

Eris craned her neck. ‘The yellow spiral? What about it?’

‘Means quarantine. What do you think’s in those rooms, that needs this kind of protection?’

A shrug. ‘The Red Tower is the T’au equivalent to the Divisio Biologis, from what I hear.’ A cough that caught the brief attention of a passing pair of white-coated T’au. ‘Throne, but I need a smoke.’

‘Soon.’

Clearthought bowed low to his companion, and walked back to his human companions, eyes bright. In one slender hand he held a red-marked slip of clear material that would fit the articulated scanners mounted on each energy barrier’s frame.

‘We may continue,’ the T’au said. ‘I advise you again, remain with me at all times. We are all strangers here, and any interference with the Tower’s work will not be countenanced. All preparations have been made. We need do nothing but proceed to the assigned laboratory.’

The walk through the bright citadel of Curia was all the more disturbing for how little it attempted to conceal its secrets. Each hall was lined with sturdy, clear material that looked in on an occupant whose species was as varied as their circumstances. Suspicious Kroot sniffed at the walls. Dull-eyed Nicassar rocked against cushioned walls, their empyreal senses suppressed by lighted helms.

As they passed one such chamber, a heavily-tattooed Fire Warrior leapt up from his restrain chair, his scream silent as he beat against the screen, his terrified gaze never leaving the humans. Orderlies of some nature rushed by, though to aid or to observe was unclear as the trio turned another corner and lost sight.

An alarm sounded, a brief squawk, then fell silent. The facility’s caretakers ignored it, as if it were a siren from another world.

Clearthought felt the awful need to explain as they went. ‘The Curia holds many members of the Greater Good who are beyond the aid of the mind-helpers,’ he said, flinching as the siren howled again. ‘Their afflictions are studied and cures are attempted. There is not always success, but there is progress.’

Again, the Imperials shared a look. Few races could understand the true essence of trial and error as humanity, the eternally-rising ape.

Deeper into the Curia, the chambers were more often darkened than not, indicating a lack of occupant, or one that required shadow. The subjects that were visible carried more obvious signs of experimentation: strange augmetics married to their flesh, visible cording from their skulls, or intravenous lines feeding into their bodies from pumping machines. Harmonious thought was the objective of the Greater Good; more extreme measures could be countenanced for that laudable goal.

After an age, the trio reached their darkened assigned cell. Clearthought played his thin card in front of an unobtrusive scanner device.

A murky interior light flickered on to reveal a gaunt T’au, her hollow eyes staring out at them. She spoke briefly, though no sound escaped. Clearthought swiped his card again, and a thin pane separated from the whole, hissing upwards into the ceiling.

‘She told me you would come,’ rasped the T’au, straining against her bonds to follow the humans as they stepped into the room behind the Water Caste envoy. ‘I am glad the waiting is over.’

‘As am I,’ sighed Clearthought, looking everywhere but his fellow. ‘Your suffering is at an end.’

The T’au closed her eyes, the lids mottled with scar tissue and weariness. ‘It has been so long since I knew peace, Por’el.’

Clearthought laid one thin hand on her shoulder, and nodded to his human companions. ‘Do what you must.’

The Interrogator was already unbuckling his raincape, shucking the heavy chain-weave off with it, rolling up the sleeves of his long black undershirt to reveal arms knotted with muscle and carved with skin-grafts. Eris was unpacking a set of injectors and vials, tapping each and frowning.

She lifted one filled with clear liquid and held it to the light. ‘Polythreme, you think? Or the Mard’ii?’

‘Polythreme for her,’ replied the Interrogator, rolling his shoulders to work out the kinks. ‘I’ll take the Celebrant.’

Eris snorted, and passed the Interrogator a small leaf that he immediately began to chew.

The T’au spoke briefly and quietly in their own language. Even if the two humans had understood, they had little interest in what platitudes passed between the xenos. Their own preparations required focus and exactitude.

Satisfied with her concoction, Eris eased the seated T’au’s restrained wrist around so that the veins were easily accessible. With a deft motion, the Imperial seated and depressed the injector. The T’au hissed as the cool liquid washed through her bloodstream.

‘What is this?’ she asked.

‘Something to help you relax.’

The Polythreme was a variant of the truth-telling drug employed in standard Inquisitorial interrogations: rather than compel a subject into a suggestive fugue, where the answers would be muddied and inconsistent as the body fought the drug’s effects, it would ease thought patterns and brain waves into a steady rhythm that a skilled psyker could ply, rather than the choppy surf of an addled mind.

It also engendered co-operation, a sense of shared journey, rather than the tearing of secrets that always left such psychological trauma that few survived the process. The subject often found themselves not only willing but actively assisting their interrogator in uncovering their sin.

The interrogator was chanting softly to himself, inaudibly, his lips moving in praise of the Emperor and seeking deliverance from harm. The temperature in the cell had already begun to drop sharply: the Water Caste envoy shivered, half in reaction, half in dread.

Eris withdrew a pre-rolled cylinder of prayer-paper from her coat, the end gritty with lho remnants, and held it out to the chanting Imperial.

Absent-mindedly, he reached out to touch the tip, which ignited in a weal of shocking blue fire that quickly transitioned to a healthy red as it greedily ate at the facility’s oxygen. Somewhere an alarm would surely be sounding, but they had reached the point of no return.

The Imperial drew her snub-nosed pistol, and Clearthought recoiled, pressing himself back against the cell wall.

‘Not for you,’ Eris grunted around a deep draw of the lho-stick. ‘For him.’

The Interrogator’s eyes were glazed and far away, but he nodded. ‘Always a chance it won’t be me who comes back,’ he replied. ‘Gun buys you time for a better solution. Lho offers a little protection from the Warp’s psychological spillage. Now. Are we ready?’

Fear was written plainly on the restrained T’au’s face, but she swallowed it down, bitter pill as it was. ‘I am.’

Gently, Quist placed his hands on the alien’s forehead. Her eyes went wide, her features slack, and--

* * *

**IV -- SUBLIMATION**

\--they were on the bridge of the _Farlight_.

Por’ui Kaimas looked out into the infinite void, the screaming faces pressed up against the glass a mere trick of pattern recognition and fear responses. She will submit herself to the mind-helpers once this crisis passes; she suspects she will not be the only one to share in these hallucinations.

Occasionally, she hears something knocking at the hull, like an old friend come to visit. She finds herself worrying for them, how cold they must be.

‘I wouldn’t,’ says a voice from behind her shoulder. She turns away from the insanity hovering just outside the voidcraft.

The bridge crew are fuzzy and indistinct, as though seen through a filter, or a pict of great age, or a corrupted data-slate. They were faded into the background, smears of soul-light against a darkening backdrop. She realised she was not seeing through her own eyes. At least, not how they were.

‘Even in a memory, the naked Warp has power,’ the voice warned. ‘Show me how you came to be here. Remember.’

A blur of memory. A cascade of images. A dutifully cheering crowd had gathered on space-docks and way-stations. The assurances of the Earth Caste, but the deception behind their easy words -- the difference in their movement, the lack of their usual ambivalence. This should be their triumph yet they are not… triumphant. What politics choke them? What Ethereal orders? What shifting of power, that delicate dance of society?

She wishes she could stay to untangle the knot. That is her life’s work, after all - but she is gone, gone, gone. Through a hole in the stars. Spiralling towards a black mouth, fanged with light. Someone, far away, is screaming. She hopes it is not her.

And now, they are caught. They are caught, hung, quartered, spiked, becalmed. The engines will not respond. What has gone so terribly wrong? Or was this the intent, all along? Is everything going to plan?

It is easy to convince those around her that this is how it is meant to be. She has been taught how to lie to her kin since birth, after all. It is an easy thing. But she cannot help but feel that for every lie she tells, the purple marsh-lights dance a little closer, as if sensing something. Guilt, perhaps. And she knows, deep in her soul, that if they came closer, they will see her, and that would be an awful thing.

‘It would be,’ the voice speaks. ‘Focus now. Can you show me what happened next?’

She tries. She does. But she cannot. It is too awful, too soon, the horror too blatant, the reality too unreal. She tries to flee from it, instinctively, repulsed by even the suggestion. The _Farlight’s_ bridge blurs into other memories, anchors of past and emotion. She is running through the _khem’ayor_ gardens her mother tends with such skill, her feet bare. She is sitting in the closeted cabin of a fellow cadet, playing at the mind-games and pattern-puzzles. She is standing in front of a Fire Caste cadre, their faces upturned and bright, hungry for news of their hero, and she has nothing true to tell them.

Each twists and contorts. Each sprouts wings, and tentacles, and teeth, and each is sawing through the hull, coming for her. There is no escape, none, never, none.

+BEGONE+

A golden light washes over the mutating cadre, searing in its intensity. As it touches each, their bodies dissolve into scores of wriggling, writhing things, their papery blue skin burning up like tallow.

Talons hook into her shoulder. She gasps at the pain, the jolting suddenness of it. Blood, thick and slow, oozes inside her tunic. The wound is not intentional. It is that of a being that cannot be gentle, for that nature is unknown, for to grasp anything but iron-tight is to risk the loss of everything. It is the sheer impulse of survival at any cost.

An eagle nestles on her shoulder. Its plumage is beaten gold. It looks at her with nothing like love.

+I did not know your memories would be so dangerous. I would not risk you without cause.+

‘No,’ she replies, not knowing where the strength comes from. ‘We can go on.’

That is the fundamental, then: that inclusive word, ‘we’. The eagle cannot fly into the darkness, for all its strength: it would be consumed in an instant, even by a memory of trauma. The T’au will not go forward alone, for she has always lived in the light of the Greater Good, and the dark places are impossible to comprehend, let alone endure, without a lantern.

The eagle shivers. Perhaps it is laughter.

+Very well.+

She closes her eyes. When she opens them again, they are returned to the pitching bridge of the _Farlight_.

Beyond the viewports, a legion of the damned is on the march, towards the stranded flotilla. They come in chariots of desire, whipping their foaming mounts onwards, waving swords forged of spite. Impossible creatures slide out of two dimensions, their forms comporting and expanding as they adjust to new realities. Weapons of strange elements burn cold in the void.

What is most horrifying is their orderly procession. They are a wave of sheer chaos, and yet, they come in stately barge like distinguished guests to a dinner engagement.

They come first for the vessels of the auxiliaries. The slaughter spills out into the void, the merely physical weapons of the Greater Good echoing emptily, causing no permanent wound to their foes. Battlesuits are deployed, then recalled, their pilots mad.

Most bizarrely, the communications links between ships stay active to the very end. Beyond the end, in some cases, the death-screams of their allies repeated over and over long after the last splinters of their vessels disappear, oddly recursive, as though the wraiths of those murdered cling to the only life remaining to them as data-ghosts trapped in buffers and overflow caches.

There is more than simple confusion aboard the _Farlight_. There are orders and counter-orders. There is no clear channel to the blessed Ethereals. Voices cry out in terror, voices cry out for salvation.

+How did you escape?+

She winces as the eagle resettles itself at her shoulder, its sharp beak snapping an inch from her ear. ‘You will not like it,’ she says. ‘It will upset you.’

+My companion said the same to yours, before we came to this place.+

‘He is not easily unsettled.’ A note of pride in her memory-voice.

+He is admirable.+ Another click of the beak. +For a xeno. Show me your escape.+

It is the sum of all fears.

It reaches from the deep Warp, the tyrant of tides. It is grand, even against the grandest of currents. It is like a colossus rising from the jealous waves beating at its thighs. From its broad torso extend ten million arms, each built for a purpose: some to tend, some to slay, some to grow, some to reap. Each and every action is provided for. Though its face is obscured, either by design or a conceit of distance, it is unmistakably the form of a blessed Ethereal, twinned with that of a human.

Its ambition makes all horrors shy. In its vision, it sees the galaxy in the palm of one of those million-million hands. It is but one of many that have yielded to the being. It is a creature of such utter, choking dominion. Before it, even the legions of the Warp are caught, ensnared and broken as surf upon a stony shore.

And it feeds upon the praise of the flotilla. It drinks fear. It consumes awe. It swells beyond impossibility and reaches - reaches - reaches - beyond the infinite horizon. It takes hold of reality and tears it away.

With that titanic act, it fades, as though the universe entire were bearing down upon such a thing, driving it from even this unreal realm.

Into that rent in the Warp, the flotilla desperately surges, before the legions can return. They limp towards that swirling tear, that fouled passage of denied hunger, of ruined soulstuff, of burning galaxies tumbling down the eternal cycle.

She had no words then, nor since, for their deliverance.

+Nor I.+

‘This is not what you expected.

+No.+

‘Do you know what it was?’

A moment. The painful shifting of talons has become almost familiar. +No.+

‘I thank you, regardless.’

+We must always face our fears.+

‘It is easier together.’

+Many things are.+ Another pause. +Suggest that to your companion when you wake.+

Abruptly, the pain is gone. The vivid colours are gone. The great being. The twisted tunnel.

The fear.

She sinks deep into the slumber so long denied her. It will be long hours before she wakes.

The Imperial duo will be gone. The tired, relieved face of Clearthought will be the first thing she sees.


End file.
